


The Family Secret

by dk323



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9221972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dk323/pseuds/dk323
Summary: When Henry doesn’t wake up no matter what Abigail does to rouse him, concern gives way to alarm. It’s up to her to figure out what to do. And with an 11-year-old Abe not knowing about his dad’s immortality, Abigail needs to make a tough decision. Even if this isn’t how she or Henry ever wanted to tell him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ghost_Rider_of_the_Aragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_Rider_of_the_Aragon/gifts).



> This was written for Ghost_Rider_of_the_Aragon. She requested Henry/Abigail with fluff and angst. Abe is in this story too, so hopefully you get some Morgan family feels (I certainly did ;)).
> 
> In my headcanon, Abe was born in late 1944 so that's why he's 11 in this story (taking place in 1955).

**1955 --**

Other than the ever present fear that his secret would be discovered by the wrong sort of people, Henry had another worry. 

Especially now with the family he had around him. Abigail and Abraham. Though he reassured Abigail that everything would be all right, that as the years went by, they would find a way to still be happy together. That he would never imagine being so bothered by other people’s stares that he would decide to separate from Abigail. 

Henry saw that undeniable issue as a problem of the distant future. He couldn’t bear the thought that Abigail dwelling on it now. That she was considering a future time when age would cause the outside world to give them odd looks. That one day, someone would mistake Abigail for Henry’s mother or Abraham for his brother.

Still, though he knew this problem was not an immediate concern, Henry had to admit to himself that he was as worried about it as Abigail was. His heart broke at the thought that one day, the family he had in Abigail and 11-year-old Abe would one day be tested. And there may be no happy ending to the story. At the very least, it would be bittersweet. 

And Henry would have to accept that change and make peace with it.

“Henry?” 

Abigail’s half-awake whisper brought Henry out of his nagging thoughts.

“I’m sorry to wake you, my love. Don’t let me ruin your slumber.”

“Oh don’t be like that, Henry dear. Tell me. What’s wrong?” Abigail asked him in concern.

Henry turned his head to face her. He gave her the most convincing smile he could muster. 

“I had a bad dream. It’s nothing to worry you about. I promise,” Henry said, trying his best to reassure her.

He kissed her softly on the lips, giving her a small smile afterwards.

Abigail didn’t look fully assuaged, her eyebrow raised as she stared at him in disbelief. 

“Please, Abigail. I am honestly all right.”

Abigail let out a sigh. “Well, there is always the morning.”

And Henry knew that she wouldn’t forget. Abigail would make sure to find out whatever was keeping Henry up at night. 

Even if she had to wait until the morning to do so.

Henry was resigned to her terms. He was just glad that she wouldn’t press the matter to be revealed at this moment.

As he fell back asleep, to Henry’s regret, his unpleasant thoughts of a bleak future returned.

\---

Abigail grew alarmed when she couldn’t wake Henry up.

She shook his shoulder again, saying his name in a louder voice this time. “Henry? Henry! Please wake up!” 

She saw that he was still breathing, his chest rising and falling steadily. She checked his pulse and found a little too slow to her liking. But at least he was still alive.

Abigail was uncertain what to do. With Henry’s immortality, she understood that she had to exercise caution. She couldn’t predict what would happen and what he would unintentionally reveal to strangers if he was taken to a hospital.

“Breathe, Abigail, breathe,” she said out loud to herself.

She took a deep breath and then she let it out. 

She was being silly. There was no reason to panic so prematurely.

Henry could simply have been so tired that he was caught in a deep sleep. She had seen him awake last night, unable to fall back asleep. It had been a bad dream. That’s what he’d said, right?

But Abigail bit her lip, going for another attempt at rousing her husband. 

She raised her voice more, now yelling at his sleeping form. 

Abigail knew she was loud enough that Abe would overhear. He would come by, asking what the trouble was.

And Abigail would look like she was overreacting. Abe was only eleven, and she didn’t want to worry him. But Abe was a perceptive boy. Abigail didn’t doubt that he’d see through any well-intentioned lie she told him.

The truth was – in the near eleven years Abigail had known Henry, she’d learned that he was a light sleeper. All those years worrying about others finding out his secret, about taking him away to being experimented on, or taken as a mad man and sent to a mental institution – had caused Henry not to sleep so deeply in case a person meaning ill will would come upon him while he was asleep. 

He’d told her that this constant anxiety of being discovered led to his penchant to being a light sleeper. And to be alert and aware as soon as he woke up so as not to be caught off-guard. Even before he’d gained his immortality, he had always been a light sleeper. But since becoming immortal, this trait became much more important to him. He worked on honing this skill so that no one would take advantage of him while asleep.

Knowing all this about Henry, Abigail’s depth of concern felt warranted. Henry would surely have woken up by now with how she was shouting at him and shaking his shoulder roughly, her fingernails even digging into his skin, leaving marks behind.

“Henry!” Abigail exclaimed, feeling this attempt was futile, but still she tried in vain. 

She heard the desperation in her voice though she tried to stifle it. Her voice apparently refused to cooperate.

“Mom? Why are you shouting? Is Dad all right?” 

Abe’s voice came from the direction of the door. He sounded tentative, seeming uneasy about what he’d heard, but concerned as well.

Abigail closed her eyes. The moment she hoped to delay was coming faster than she wanted. 

She left Henry’s bedside. She could see Abe standing uncertainly in the doorway. His feet appeared restless, torn between entering the room and making his exit. Like her son wasn’t sure he wished to find out what the problem was.

Abigail didn’t blame him. He was still young and it was not something that he was familiar with handling. 

Though lately, Abigail -- along with Henry she knew -- had noticed that Abe was at the age where he was questioning their frequent sudden moves. Their reasons about needing to change jobs had begun to fall flat and Abe didn’t seem to believe their admittedly repetitive explanations. He was even irritated at times, though his moods thankfully didn’t last. But it definitely caused Abigail and Henry to consider telling Abe sooner. That revealing the truth to him once he turned eighteen was too long of a wait.

Abigail smiled at him and she knelt down in front of him. 

“Everything is all right, Abe. Your dad is just very tired. I was being silly, honestly. You know how your dad is a light sleeper. It’s uncommon that he falls into a deep sleep. I’m just being overly concerned. Truth be told, he needs the rest. Why don’t we leave him be? How about that?”

She stroked his cheek in an attempt to comfort him. Abe gave her a nod, but she could tell that he wasn’t buying her explanation.

Her son’s perceptiveness was both a gift and well, especially now, an unwanted obstacle to reassuring him.

“All right, Mom. I agree. He does like to work,” Abe said knowingly. 

She smiled at him.

After she stood up, Abigail placed his hand on her back and she steered him out of the room. 

She told him that she was going to get dressed and that she would make him breakfast.

“Can it be chocolate chip pancakes?” Abe piped up, grinning at his mom.

Abigail let out a small sigh. She wouldn’t put it past Abe for taking advantage of the situation by asking for a breakfast favorite – even if it was one of the unhealthier options. But it was either just accepting his request or telling him her real concern about Henry. 

She didn’t doubt Abe would bring up his mom’s unusual shouting again until she gave him an answer he was satisfied with.

That is, if Abigail insisted on serving him a healthy breakfast.

“All right, dear. Pancakes it is. I suppose since it’s a Saturday, you can have a treat. But I will make sure you eat a fruit after your pancakes. Do we have an agreement?” She said in a stern voice.

Abe nodded eagerly. “Yes, Mom. I promise I will. Thank you!”

She hugged him quickly before Abe raced off back to his bedroom.

Before Abigail changed out of her pajamas, she tried to wake Henry up again.

She decided to kiss him this time. It was a deep kiss, as she teased his mouth open so that hopefully, upon feeling her, Henry would be enticed to wake up.

When Abigail pulled away though, Henry still remained the same as before. Breathing normal for someone asleep, though pulse still low. 

She even grabbed one of her hair pins and poked him with it in the arm. Surely he would feel that?

The pin caused a small wound, drops of blood welling up. 

Yet Henry didn’t open his eyes and he made no sounds indicating he was waking up.

Abigail felt her worry grow by the minute. She moved to disinfect the wound and cover it with a bandage. She certainly wasn’t going to leave her husband bleeding, however slowly, and no matter how immortal he was.

It was the nurse in her. She couldn’t fight the instinct despite Henry’s ability to come back to life.

“Please wake up, Henry love. Please, for me. For Abe. I don’t know what to tell him if you don’t wake up by the end of the day,” she said.

She decided to stop for now. She quickly got dressed. Abe would be waiting for his breakfast. She had little doubt he was already in the kitchen looking for the chocolate chips. Perhaps he was trying to get a head start on the pancakes. He did seem to enjoy cooking, but it was mostly simple meals for now. Ones that didn’t require an oven and that took less than an hour. 

Abigail didn’t fully trust him yet on his own. He could burn the kitchen down especially when he was excited and not thinking too much about kitchen – especially stove – safety.

As Abigail expected, Abe was shuffling around in the kitchen getting out the ingredients for the pancake batter. 

“I can make the batter,” Abe offered. 

“Thank you, Abe. That will be a big help.”

Abigail advised him on preparing the batter correctly. She made sure he was not too close to the stove as she put the gas on to make the pancakes. She didn’t miss his look of interest as he watched her lay out some of the batter on the frying pan in a circle.

She couldn’t help but smile at his inquisitiveness. As she answered his questions on the pancakes, Abigail’s concern about Henry, though still present, was pushed to the back of her mind.

\---

It was past lunchtime and still, Henry failed to wake up. Abigail had gone as far as dumping ice-cold water from a bucket over Henry’s prone form – particularly at his face.

The downside to this was that Abe saw her.

“Mom, what are you doing?” Abe said in surprise. 

She turned to look at him, only managing a sheepish expression on her face.

What could she really say that Abe wouldn’t deem crazy?

She gave a small sigh, resigned to this difficult position she was now in.

“Come here, Abraham,” Abigail beckoned him. 

She used his full name so he would understand the seriousness of the situation.

Noticeably somber now, Abe warily walked to his mother’s side.

She hugged him to her.

“I’m sorry, Abe. This is not easy to say. But I believe your father is not well. What he has is beyond a simple illness. And it has concerned me very much.”

“So is that why Dad won’t wake up?” Abe asked, brow furrowed in worry.

Abigail nodded. “Yes. And I’m not sure that I should take him to the hospital.”

Abe looked confused. “Why not?”

Abigail paused. She had to speak to him about his father’s immortality. It was one of the hardest things she would have to do.

She felt a little awkward doing this with Henry unconscious in the same room. But still, his presence -- no matter how silent -- gave her the courage she needed to tell their son about Henry.

Abigail directed him to the little round table on the other side of the bedroom. They sat across from one another.

“Abe, dear,” she began. She reached across the table to grasp his hand. “There’s a reason why we move more often than other families do. Why you may see us take moving very seriously.”

“And this has to do with Dad? Is he on the run from something? From a crime?” Abe said, his voice going higher, his eyes widening.

Abigail shook her head. Trust Abe’s overactive imagination to rear its head now.

“No, no. Nothing like that,” she was quick to tell him before her son’s mind went wild with different ideas, one crazier than the next.

Abe nodded, sobering up as if understanding the full gravity of the situation.

Abigail took a deep breath and then she released it.

“Abraham, sweetheart, your father can’t die. Not permanently at least.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes, dear. This…gift was given to him wholly by accident when he was in his mid-thirties. But since 1814, he has been immortal. And unable to physically age from 1814 on.”

“But how did it happen? All this time and Dad hasn’t found the cause? Why he was made immortal?”

Abigail shook her head. “No, Abe. One thing at a time though,” she advised him. “This is a big secret I’m telling you. I want you to think about that first. Your father will talk to you more about it once you’ve properly thought about what I told you.”

Abe bit his lip, peering over at the bed where his father lay, still in some unusual deep sleep.

“Do you believe Dad will wake up?”

Abigail tried to give her son a reassuring smile, but she was sure it came out weaker than she wanted to. “Your dad has been through a lot in the many years he’s lived. Whatever is going on, I’m confident he can survive it.”

“But you’re not sure about getting him medical treatment because of his immortality?”

“Well, at least putting him in a hospital. You see, Abe, when your dad dies, he disappears and reappears in the nearest body of water, emerging from the water – a river for example – when he ‘wakes’ up.”

Abe made a small ‘o’ with his mouth, comprehending the problem. “If a doctor or nurse see dad die and then disappear, they wouldn’t know how to explain it. Especially if they see dad again afterwards.”

“Yes. It will create more problems than I’d like. And certainly your dad would want to avoid any awkward situations.”

Abe nodded.

“Are you all right with this, honey? It sounds…crazy, I know, but it’s the truth.”

“I think I am. You don’t look like you’re fooling me.”

“I’m not, Abraham. Definitely not.” Abigail was firm on that. “But now you can understand why we move sometimes. Someone who knew your father from long ago could see him. They could question him looking the same or being alive when he shouldn’t be. Or your father unintentionally dies, risking exposure by disappearing. It hasn’t been easy, but now that you know, we can work together as a family--”

“-to protect dad’s secret?” Abe finished.

“Yes.”

Abigail squeezed Abe’s hand, trying to comfort him. Though he said that he was all right with knowing about his dad’s immortality, she noticed his nervous look told a different story. Abigail knew that it would be best to let him be for now. Allow him to think about this on his own. She hoped that he would be willing to come to her when he was ready to talk about how he really felt.

\---

The rest of the day went by quietly. Abe went to spend some time with friends who lived nearby. Although he left with a heavy heart considering his dad hadn’t woken up yet.

Abigail let him go, deciding that some time out of the house would be good for him. 

\---

To her great relief, Henry woke up just as the sun was being to set for the evening.

Abigail hugged him immediately when she saw him open his eyes, moving to sit up in bed.

“Oh Henry! I was so worried,” Abigail said. “You wouldn’t wake up.”

Henry had a guilty look on his face. “I’m sorry for doing that to you, Abigail. I don’t know what happened. I was thinking about my future…how it would affect us, you, me and Abraham. It overwhelmed me.”

“And you always tell me not to worry about it.”

“I suppose I was trying to be optimistic. But I have to accept that due to my condition, the reality of my future won’t be without heartbreak and loss.”

“Henry, sweetheart, mortal or immortal, all of us must deal with that harsh truth. You are not alone, understand? Focus on what you have now – you have me, Henry, and a son who loves you and admires you.” 

“Where is Abe? Did he see I wasn’t well?”

Abigail gave him an anxious smile. “Henry, he knows. I told him.”

Henry stared at her in surprise. He went to climb out of bed. “I thought we would wait until Abe was older. And that we would do it together.”

Abigail shook her head. She put his hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to lie stay in bed. “You haven’t eaten all day, Henry. I don’t want you up and walking without some food in you. I’ll get you some dinner.”

Henry frowned. “I need to use the restroom.”

Abigail blushed. “I’m so sorry. I should have thought. You go and do that. I’ll heat up dinner for you.”

“I can eat in the kitchen.” He told her. “I believe I’ve spent enough time in this bed for today.”

Abigail nodded. “Of course.”

She helped him get out of bed, keeping him steady as he stood up. Lying in bed all day did disorient him a bit as he reasserted his balance.

“Thank you, Abigail.”

As he walked out of the room, Abigail spoke up, “I didn’t feel right lying to Abe, Henry. He needed to know why I didn’t immediately take you to the hospital. And in case you… I thought he deserved to know before you ‘died’ what would happen.”

Henry smiled back at her. “I always half-expected our telling Abe wouldn’t work out as we planned it. Most of the time when I die, it was purely by accident. Life is a funny, frustrating thing.”

“Yes it is. But life can also be wonderful and awe-inspiring. Remember that, Henry.”

Henry grinned. He kissed her on the lips. “Seeing you say that as I look at your beautiful face, I can’t forget.”

Abigail smiled at him. She pushed him teasingly at his shoulder. “Oh go away with you.”

\---

Before Abe went to bed that night, Henry talked with him.

He sat down at the foot of his bed. “Your mother tells me that now you know about my condition.”

Abe nodded silently at him. He looked down, not seeming interested in having this conversation.

“She also told me that you have some questions for me.”

Abe shrugged. “Maybe.” 

Henry frowned. Abe was more subdued than Henry was used to seeing him. Perhaps the reality of his father’s immortality was truly sinking in. Henry wondered if it proved to be too much for Abe. Though the timing of telling him was not the best, what was done was done. Henry could understand Abigail’s reasoning even if he still wished they would have had the chance to tell Abe later. Perhaps when he was in high school.

It didn’t matter now. Henry could only be there for Abe, to help him to cope with this big change in his life.

“Abe, you can talk to me, you know that. Anything you’re concerned about, I’m here to listen.”

Abe sighed. He looked up at his dad. “Even if Mom said that you come back to life when you die, I thought about it and…”

“Yes, Abraham?”

“I’m not sure I want to see it. That what Mom said was right.”

“Do you doubt I’m immortal?” Henry guessed, speaking gently to him.

Abe shook his head. “No, I think I can believe that. But seeing it happen – watching you disappear… I don’t think I want to see that yet.”

“Because then having that physical evidence will make it real? And it’ll be more than just something your mother and I are telling you is true?” Henry said, certain he understood what Abe’s dilemma was. 

If he saw his dad die and then come back to life, it would be irrefutable proof that his life wouldn’t be same again. If, of course, Abe decided to keep Henry in his life and not become estranged from him due to the secret being too great of a burden to carry.

Henry wanted to promise his son that he would never die in front of him. 

At least until he was older and could hopefully handle it better. 

But Henry knew that was a hollow promise. Life was unpredictable and he simply couldn’t foresee what the future had in store for him. He couldn’t shield Abe from everything as he wished he could.

Henry stood up from the bed and went to Abe, embracing him.

“I’m sorry, Abraham. I will try to keep from dying in your presence, but I am no psychic. Some situations will be beyond my control. I hope you can accept my promise no matter how weak it sounds. I want to be honest with you. And remember that I love you. If you don’t want to see me ever again when you’re older and living on your own, then I understand.”

Abe bit his lip. “You’re my dad. The only dad I have. I don’t think I can do that – avoid seeing you. Even when I’m older. Even if I can’t tell people you’re my dad then.”

“It’s something you have to learn to live with it, Abe. I’m sorry about that. But for now, you, your mother and I are a family. And we don’t have to hide that. No matter my secret. We can be happy now and not allow the future to sour our present. All right, my boy?”

Abe nodded, giving him a small smile.

Henry heard Abigail enter the room.

He looked up at her as she became even more radiant with her easy smile.

“It’s not just your secret, Dad,” Abe said.

“It’s the family secret,” Abigail put in.

Henry liked the sound of that. “Yes, I suppose now it is.” 

Henry kissed Abe on the top of the head as Abigail came by the bed. Taking hold of her hand, Henry exchanged a look of contentment with her. 

The future was uncertain, but the present gave Henry happiness. 

He would cling to that happiness and use it to strengthen him during the dreaded darker days.

***************************************


End file.
